Just us chickenshits here

A commenter, Beetlejuice, hit us with the following:

You all might do an “OK” thing here and there, but you’re still nothing more than faceless cowards. You can pat yourselves on your pretentious little backs all you want, but the fact remains – You are cowards.

Normally, we would say something smartass or ignore it. But Beetlejuice is not alone and he actually has a point we have to acknowledge.

We are cowards. When Speck was in charge, some who feed us information were scared of their jobs. Now that things are up in the air on his successor, they are scared too. That’s how it goes with whistleblowers and bullshit callers. And if that is our brand, we will wear our yellow-backed stripe for life. Because, Beetlejuice, we did one thing. When The Chart was defanged and The Globe disappeared, we asked questions. We kept debate alive. And we pissed you off. Which is fine.

We were like a good old colonial broadside that was partisan, crazy and well-read. And, yes, we too wanted a revolution. And like the colonialists of old, we risked a lot and met in secret. And like the American revolutionaries, we saw good people die along the way. And if keeping anonymous pisses you off, then fuck you.

See? We still don’t listen to grownups.

Seriously, do you want us to give a complete list of everyone who voluntarily or accidentally contributed? And put them at risk? It is that extensive a network.

And don’t look to the Faculty Senate, either.

You see? If any of them were involved, we would have hurt them. And we didn’t want to do that.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” We didn’t want to sin by silence. And the university might be better by our extreme actions.

We hope so.

Cowards for anonymity? We can live with that.

The courageous stood up for shared governance, got a vote of no confidence, stood up when the administration tried to stifle free speech and dissent, and sometimes said “Not everything is wrong, but this isn’t right.”

We just gave them a place to go to vent. And they are the ones we pat on the back and not ourselves.